But a system of higher education large enough to accomodate half the population cannot replicate the university training of old. Where could one possibly find the requisite number of true scholars to tutor such a multitude of students? And what true scholar would wish to devote their lives to the education of so many of those marginally educable at the level of abstraction and detail required of a university training?

As a consequence, university students are now mostly taught, not by scholars, but by academic hacks, drudges and careerists.

To restore integrity to the academic world it would be necessary to return to a system of academic elitism, which allowed only those truly gifted and those truly committed to learning to enter institutions of higher education.

Universities could then once again be managed by the scholars themselves, as in 1687, when Isaac Newton represented the University of Cambridge before (hanging) Judge Jeffreys because of the University's stubborn refusal, in accordance with the law, to award an MA to a Catholic who would not take the Oaths of Supremacy.

And one need not go back to the 17th Century to find universities functioning as self-governing communities of scholars. Such was the model in England as recently as 50 years ago, when only one or two percent of school leavers pursued higher education and universities were correspondingly small.

But the way forward will not likely be by way of a return to the past, but by an entirely new course, as discussed here.